Climate

FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT CLIMATE - PAGE 2

The global climate negotiations in Copenhagen did not produce an ambitious, legally binding action plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But Copenhagen did yield something significant: It won political commitments from China, India, Brazil and South Africa to be part of the solution and thus to an overhaul of the present climate-change regime, which puts the carbon-mitigation onus entirely on the developed countries. Future international negotiations would proceed on the basis of these political commitments, enshrined in the so-called Copenhagen Accord.

MELBOURNE: Chinese President Hu Jintao and US president George Bush have delivered a sweeping victory for Australian Prime Minister John Howard on climate change, after agreeing for the first time to accept global goals to cut greenhouse gas emissions. APEC leaders were today expected to sign the "Sydney Declaration", putting an aspirational target at the centre of cutting global carbon emissions after the Kyoto climate change protocol expires in 2012, 'The Australian' reported.

WASHINGTON: Increasingly warmer and drier climate is pushing plant species to higher elevations on a southern Arizona mountain , scientists say. Comparing plant communities today with a survey taken 50 years ago, University of Arizona-led research provides the first on-the-ground evidence for Southwestern plants being pushed to higher elevations by climate change . The findings confirm that previous hypotheses are correct in their...

COPENHAGEN: India will not compromise on its basic positions on climate change while playing a constructive role for evolving an effective and equitable global pact on emission cuts, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh has said. On his first day at the climate meet here, Ramesh also said India's national voluntary domestic measures to tackle global warming were not up for international scrutiny and progress on these would be checked by country's Parliament. Ramesh told journalists here that his discussions were focused on the various drafts of potential treaty from the Working Groups on Kyoto, the African group and Alliance of Island States (AOSIS)

DAVOS: Japan has set up a five-year-10 billion dollar fund to support developing countries in their efforts to combat global warming - a move that is likely to gain priority at this year's G8 Summit. Calling it the 'Cool Earth Partnership', the Japanese prime minister Yasuo Fukuda, who will chair the G8 Hokkaido Toyako Summit later in the year, said: "Japan will cooperate actively with developing countries' efforts to reduce emissions, such as those to enhance energy efficiency.

NEW DELHI: India's first national expedition to the South Pole to study climate change patterns over the past few hundred years will be flagged off on Monday. Science and technology minister Prithviraj Chavan will flag off the expedition on November 1 to kick off the international celebrations of the centenary of the first man to reach the South Pole in 1911. Being led by Dr Rasik Ravindra, 62, this is the first time that India is leading a 40-day expedition to the South Pole.

CHENNAI: Keeping up with global trends, the Tamil Nadu government on Wednesday announced it will undertake a detailed study on the impact of climate changes in the state. According to the policy note of the Environment and Forests Department for the year 2008-09, the study would suggest remedial measures to combat the issue. "This study is proposed to be taken up through any one of the organisations - The Energy Research Institute, Anna University or Indian Institute of Technology, Madras at a cost of Rs 10 lakh during the year 2008-09," the note read.

LONDON: Nobel Peace Prize-winner Al Gore said in an interview published Monday that there had been no improvement in the fight against climate change since his Oscar-winning film on the issue was released. Speaking to The Sun tabloid, the former US vice-president said that the situation had instead gotten worse since his documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" hit cinemas in 2006. "I have to say the situation has not improved since I made the movie in 2006," Gore told the paper.

DAVOS, SWITZERLAND: World business and political leaders have tempered optimism over global economic growth with concern over climate change as they kicked off their elite annual retreat in Davos. The four-day gathering of movers and shakers in the Swiss ski resort boasted the usual impressive guest list, with delegates able to flit from a breakfast with Microsoft founder Bill Gates to an evening audience with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The theme of this year's World Economic Forum (WEF)

KALPETTA (KERALA): Unseasonal rains have sharply brought down the yield of wild honey in Kerala's Wayanad region this year, depriving the hard-pressed tribals of their supplementary income. Torrential rains and strong winds have caused mass-dropping of flowers in deep forests, forcing the bees to move in drones to greener pastures to nest and extract nectar. While a total of 15,000 kg of wild honey was collected in the summer last year, the yield was estimated to be as low as 1500 kg this season, Secretary of Sulthan Bathery Scheduled Tribes Co-operative Society, P M Goerge said.